The present invention relates to the field of information receipt, organization, presentation, and retrieval, and more particularly to an information database and system that sorts and re-sorts information in virtual real time based upon democratic criteria, allowing members to provide information, designate and weight the designations of that information, while the system tracks and modifies the display of that information in accordance with the weighted sums of such designations. The invention further relates to automatic, dynamic profiling of members in a manner suggestive of profile similarities and intellectual matching among them.
The Internet is filled with information in a generally disorganized and flat format. Information presentation is based either upon the principals of anarchy, i.e., the xe2x80x9cabsence of government,xe2x80x9d or autocracy, i.e., xe2x80x9cunchecked by constitutional restrictions or limitations.xe2x80x9d See Black""s Law Dictionary, 4th Edition, 1968.
For example, entities can allow their information to be accessible, but organization is dictated predominantly by location, such as by way of a Uniform Resource Locator or xe2x80x9cURL.xe2x80x9d This is an example of content anarchy, in which all content is equally weighted and anything can be presented in virtually any format. All such presentations remain at the same level, with no hierarchical structure between them. In general, there are no specialized rules for organization of information across multiple URL""s that are owned by independent entities. Any individual entity can present anything at any time, in virtually any format.
Each URL tags to a specific server or group of servers, with its own predefined organizational structure. Within the constraints of a particular location in which users can access and exchange information, lie a precept- of rules that the particular location imposes in advance of the exchange. For example, if one xe2x80x9cdials inxe2x80x9d to a chat room, the subject and rights of access and disclosure are already predefined. One can establish a new chat room, but there is limited ability to poll the general audience and objectively determine commonality for the purposes of establishing the proper subject. Accordingly, such systems are content autocratic.
More specifically, the subject, format and ultimately the very existence of a given site is determined either by its owner, originator or editorial administrators. The same people determine site structure, administer the site and make all the important decisions concerning the operation of the site. While such decisions may comport with popular opinion, this outcome is not by design but by mere happenstance.
A traditional example of an autocratic environment is a bulletin board. The particular categories and subcategories are predetermined by the creators or administrators of the site, and the individuals who log on can subjectively provide content which is presented in flat form. Under the original bulletin board concept, there was no mechanism for objectively determining among the users commonality between the postings. The postings were merely placed, and searching by word between them provided. The bulletin board concept has evolved to the extent of permitting the designation of categories by the individual users and threads within categories. Still, however, there is no mechanism for objectively recreating and automatically re-sorting the categories for posting based upon interest. Thus, the bulletin board, in both its original and expanded form, remains a mix of autocratic (i.e., the categories are predefined) and anarchic (i.e., the information is flat in the category) information.
It should be appreciated that in an environment in which anyone can open a category or posting on any topic, may appear, at first blush, to resemble a free, democratic environment. However, the interest that others have in the category is in no manner considered in determining whether to maintain that category. This has many negative consequences. It is common for users to find chat rooms with either no one or a handful of participants, and bulletin board categories with few to no listings, or full of postings unrelated to the board""s stated category. Worse yet, many boards are filled with junk content and advertising. Yet these chat rooms and categories remain because the structure of the environment allows them to be created and maintained, even though there is little to no interest in them, and their existence interferes with the meaningful organization and operation of other, more popular boards. Such environments demonstrate true content anarchy.
Allowing the webmaster of the site to edit the contents and thereby remove categories or chat rooms that the webmaster, in his/her view, believes to be unpopular, offensive or irrelevant, or, in the alternative, add categories or rooms that the webmaster believes to have interest and appeal, now imposes the autocratic rule of the webmaster on the system.
It should thus be appreciated that heretofore unknown is a mechanism by which information can be created and maintained in categories that truly reflect the democratic interests of the users. To allow the users to subjectively render determinations would send the site back to the anarchic; to predetermine based-upon editorial decisions would send the site back to the autocratic.
Examples of traditional autocratic and anarchic sites abound. For example, xe2x80x9ctheglobe.comxe2x80x9d is a traditional bulletin board design in which the categories are predetermined, and postings are permitted, even though certain of such postings are infrequently to never viewed, are filled with junk, or are unrelated to their stated purpose. xe2x80x9cEzboards.comxe2x80x9d differs from xe2x80x9cglobe.comxe2x80x9d mainly in the ease of its interface and ability to create categories, but otherwise suffers the same disabilities.
xe2x80x9cVote.comxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cvoter.comxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cspeakout.comxe2x80x9d poll audience responses to predetermined categories and predetermined questions. These sites, however, do not invoke an automatic and objective, democratic hierarchy. Similarly, while xe2x80x9cremarq.comxe2x80x9d includes a rating system, in which scores are xe2x80x9cassigned,xe2x80x9d this system is clearly not objective, nor are the categories created and maintained based upon the objective, hierarchical interests of the users.
The Internet thus presently lacks in true abilities to create collaborative information environments, or so-called xe2x80x9ccontent democracies.xe2x80x9d (The phrase xe2x80x9cContent Democracyxe2x80x9d is a trademark of the inventors. All use is by permission only)
Likewise, the Internet lacks in the ability to perform objective dynamic profiling. In other words, typical xe2x80x9cmatchmakingxe2x80x9d engines and site profiling procedures require the subjective self-revelation of the participantsxe2x80x94they are compelled to answer xe2x80x9cpre-cannedxe2x80x9d questionnaires and describe themselves in the manner they wish to be, rather than in the manner that they actual are. Consequently, if the questions don""t elicit a true profile, then the results are useless. Likewise, if the questions are not honestly answered, then the results are misleading. Additionally, by requiring the provision of answers to such questionnaires, a whole category of non-participating users is lostxe2x80x94i.e., those who elect not to answer the questionnaire are simply left unprofiled or are denied access to the site.
It is thus an object of the instant invention to provide an environment in which both categories and subcategories of information are ranked based upon objective indicia rather than subjective determinations of the autocrats (i.e., the founders or editorial boards) or anarchists (i.e., the users who can xe2x80x9cthrow upxe2x80x9d anything they want).
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a system that automatically and objectively ranks in hierarchy information that is provided in a manner that correlates with the actual interests of the participants of the site.
It is a still further object of the instant invention to provide dynamic profiling of participants by automatically tracking behavior in the site, and then allowing profiling, and hence selection of xe2x80x9cmatchesxe2x80x9d based upon such objectively collected and ranked information.
The various features of novelty which characterize the invention are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of the disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages, and specific objects attained by its use, reference should be had to the drawings and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated and described preferred embodiments of the invention.
The foregoing objects and other objects of the invention are achieved through a system and method for receiving, organizing and displaying information received from a plurality of users, having a hierarchical database with at least one expandable level, at least one of the at least one expandable levels having at least two expandable sublevels; an interactive interface for placing each user at a level and sublevel in the database, receiving user-supplied information for modification and addition to the content and structure of the levels and sublevels of the database, receiving user-supplied commands for navigating through and extracting content from the database, presenting content from the database in accordance with the information and commands supplied; a counting routine which increments a level and sublevel specific counter each time a user is placed at a level and sublevel within the at least two expandable levels and sublevels; and a database sorting function for gathering the plurality of user-supplied information and commands virtually simultaneously, and updating the hierarchical structure of the database in accordance with the magnitude of the number of the specific counter. The database levels and sublevels are categories, subcategories and query items. The commands are search, add, select and interact. Additionally shown is a data base search engine for receiving database search commands from at least one user, searching the database for matches, and presenting the results of the search. The system dynamically profiles members of an on-line community in that it allows a member to see those who have answered query items in a subcategory and category in a manner suggestive of some desired similarity in character.
Other features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims.